Ethics Movie Review

MGMT 4110 Business Ethics and Policy |

Movie Project Written Report

About “The Joneses”

A perfect family- the Joneses comprises Kate, Steve, Mick, and Jenn has moved into a medium high income neighborhood. They demonstrated the typical American Dream. Kate is a charming and inviting housewife, Steve is stylish and rich. Mick and Jenn are good-looking, smart and trendy. This “family” is so perfect that everyone started imitating and keeping up with. However, in fact they are not a family at all. This unit was manufactured by a company that engages in ambush marketing. Products are carefully selected for the Joneses to use, by doing so, it is hoped that people will start to buy the stuff recommended or used by the Joneses. They sell products as lifestyle. Because of their outstanding performance, soon they have turned on the neighborhood, and sales were increasing exponentially.

One of the couples, the Joneses’ neighbor Larry and Summer were most indulged in pursuing the Joneses’ lifestyle, purchased a lot of stuff that financial problems soon aroused. The rest of the plot will be covered throughout our three-part discussion.

Part 1: Ambush Marketing

Most of the plots in “The Joneses” are about ambushing marketing. Therefore we would like to first discuss ‘Is the ambush marketing strategy demonstrated in the film ethical?’ From the company’s perspective, it may be YES, since it creates profit for the company. But from many other perspectives, it may be NO.

In theory, ambush marketing is ‘a marketing strategy wherein the advertisers associate themselves with, and therefore capitalize on, a particular event without paying any sponsorship fee’. On one side, we believe this new form of marketing strategy can create a lot of business success for a company since it is a very cost-effective marketing technique. As shown in the movie, the Joneses family carefully stocks various goods at different stores and creates strong visibility in a desirable consumer market....